Aftereffect
by apollo-gize
Summary: Madotsuki had never needed the knife before. Once she had it, she felt that she had to use it. On whom? Well, that didn't matter. TWO-SHOT.
1. I

**Aftereffect**

**Hard to spoil this game. What the hell, guys. Violence. One of Two.  
**

* * *

Madotsuki loved her dreams.

More than anyone.

They were her escape, her legal drug, her one true love, her favourite hobby, her life.

And she loved the denizens of her dreams almost as much as she loved the adventures themselves.

Masada, the alien, and his piano on which he played the most bewitching music she'd ever heard; his spaceship, which he used to take her to see Mars and the larger alien who lived there and cried every time they visited. Sometimes he teaches her how to play bits of songs that he remembers, and she resists the temptation of napping on his bed when he plays anything close to a lullaby.

There were the sisters in the lonely monochrome desert, who would dance and stay and chat with her briefly before running off together. Madotsuki never minded. They were sisters, Monoko and Monoe. And they treated her like one too.

Poniko, however, she was a little more wary of. She could be cold and relatively hostile, and got mad when she touched the lights, but didn't actually seem to mind the intrusion. She boasted about a monster in her closet, which terrified Madotsuki to the core. She made sure to limit her visits after that revelation.

Shitai was different. He looked dead, and that scared Madotsuki. But he wasn't. He would be in the middle of the rainy road, waiting for the downpour to stop and a car to come to pick him up. "My friend is coming, but he's always late," the corpse said once, when she had come to look for a frog. Shitai also seemed to like cats. He makes a point of petting her when she wears the kitty ears and tail.

The E-Brothers are nice too. They wait for her in an office where the doctor is never in, and one of them is angry that he'll never come. It's almost relaxing though, because E-Guy plays the flute, and Madotsuki loves to listen. He even taught her a few simple melodies, and she plays them whenever she feels like it.

However, she does not like the bird-girls, the Toriningen. They run around squawking and giggling and laughing with each other, but never her. They chase and berate her sometimes, and never, not _ever_ have invited her to come join their picnic. She likes them less than the man who stares at the sisters and her in the desert with a face that looks like something Picasso could have painted.

Other than the Toriningen, and some terrifying creatures that she avoids like no others, she loves it all.

And then, one day, it all changes.

It starts with stumbling through the darkness of Dark World, her literal "darkest dream". No light, no nothing, bumping into blob-like creatures that blend in with the inky black, except for wide, purple eyes.

And then she finds it.

The knife. It's sharp, it's perfect, it's calling to her and she wants it more than anything else she's ever found before. It tells her that it can protect her like no other, that it's the only thing she's ever needed, and suddenly she feels like she can cut down anything.

It's just a dream.

She can't get hurt.

She can hurt things that would try, though.

Madotsuki would love to see them try.

With the knife, it begins. It begins in number world, with the green eyed man who refuses to move.

She tells him to move, and he stares. She demands he move, and he still stares.

Madotsuki pulls out the knife. Three eyes widen, the place where his mouth should be and skin is stretched over seems to twitch.

But he doesn't move.

That is, until Madotsuki _makes him_.

Madotsuki is amazed at how quickly she can move.

In, out, and he falls to ground.

She steps over the body and enters into the rooms she's been wanted to enter forever, and when she's finally inside, the brunette wants to yells, scream, cuss.

It's a room flooded with cyclopes, red hair everywhere, pushing and jostling, and she can't see anything. They can't move, with her in the room. She can't move with them in the room.

There are two options- Leave and take no interest- or knife them. They'll fall, she can move.

A perfect trade?

Yes. Perfect.

She stabs one. It screams. Madotsuki's eyes go wide. She shivers and grits her teeth. There are more, and she can't get scared. What if there was an effect beyond the moving wine-coloured sea of one-eyed freaks?

Stab.

Scream.

Stab.

Scream.

She keeps stabbing, they keep screaming.

And at last, at last! She reaches the far side of the room.

There is nothing there but a funny face, with a puckered blue face with lips that stick out of the floor.

Madotsuki is nothing less than upset, and decides maybe, maybe it's time to wake up.

She pinches her cheek, and soon enough, she's in her bed, and the knife is no where in sight.


	2. II

**Aftereffect  
**

**Character death. More violence. Late night writing. The usual.  
**

* * *

When Madotsuki finally falls asleep again, she feels different when she finds herself on her balcony again.

Madotsuki feels... off.

She doesn't want to wake up again, because she just fell asleep, and there was no point doing that again. So Madotsuki's done the same thing she does every time she's done since she found escape in her dreams, and heads to the Nexus.

Maybe today she'll see Masada again, and tell him about how weird she feels. So she opens the door to the coldest dreamworld, and trudges in slippers and knee highs through the snow.

Madotsuki wanders until she finds a bed in the icy wasteland, and quickly crawls in. The second she shuts her eyes, she stands at the top of a pale staircase, long arms with clawed hands making wanton grabs at the inky blackness. It's a sight she's seen before, and keep walking, until she finds herself in front of the roaring flare blocking her path.

The girl does what she always does- pulls out her umbrella as sheets of rain materialize seconds later. With the fire extinguished, she puts away the umbrella and the rain dissipates, like usual, and Madotsuki continues on her way.

Masada is playing something new today, and it's something surprisingly upbeat for him. The alien excitedly waves his favourite (and only) visitor to his piano, and before Madotsuki can say how she feels, the pale man is beginning to explain how he got Tasei to stop crying. He keeps talking and talking- did he ever talk this much? She should be glad for him, but she isn't. He should have shut up by now. Madotsuki is getting more impatient by the second, but Masada doesn't notice.

Masada doesn't notice because he's happy he got Tasei to stop crying.

Masada doesn't notice because he thinks Madotsuki should be happy too.

Masada doesn't notice Madotsuki pull out the knife.

Masada does notice when the tip of the blade is pricking into his sternum.

She's leering up at him, a deadly look in her eyes, warm, friendly look done away with, and replaced with something murderous.

For a split second, he thinks she's playing a nasty trick on him, and smiles nervously. He tries to talk some more, but Madotsuki tells him to shut up. Masada opens his mouth again, trying to plead with her, and ask her what's wrong, but he's cut short by his own screaming.

Madotsuki's devilish look vanishes as soon as she realizes what she's done. The man's inky-black, hypertropic eye becomes focused for the first time since Madotsuki's met him, before he crumples to the ground, red clashing and staining his previously white spaceship.

She backs up, and looks at the knife, and looks at Masada, and looks at the knife and back to Masada. She didn't mean to kill him. She just wanted him to listen to her. It's all she meant. Madotsuki looks around in a panic, and flees the scene of her second crime.

Her first reaction is to pinch her cheek to wake up, but she doesn't want to touch her face.

Her hands are covered in Masada's blood.

So she runs. She runs until she finds herself in the Monochrome Desert, and she's panting and she comes face to face with Dave Spector.

Madotsuki recoils and demands to know what he wants.

Dave Spector just stares.

She's always hated Dave Spector and his staring.

The knife finds its way into the man's large head, and he unleashes a ghastly howl.

Madotsuki yanks out the knife, bloodied again and stares at it, horrified, in her hand. Is she really doing this? No, it couldn't have been. She would never! It's the knife, the knife is causing her to do all these things, she's sure of it.

She hears a voice behind her, and whirls around to see Monoe looking stricken. Monoe looking stricken because the knife is now in her stomach, and her white form is crawling with red, and she's screaming.

Madotsuki gives a wail, as she yanks it away from another person she's considered a friend.

Madotsuki's become a murderer, and the only thing she can do is run because she doesn't want to touch her face with a hand coated in blood, even if it would mean waking up from this nightmare. So the girl takes flight again, and continues to run, from portal to tunnel, praying that Monoko doesn't ever find out what happened to her sister.

And then she runs into someone she had always hoped she would avoid.

A Toriningen. The one with long red pigtails and a striped dress. The one that always followed her. The one she hates most.

The girl gives the freak a warning first. The creature draws nearer, cocking its hideous beaked head to the side. She tells the beast to go away. The bird-girl walks even closer, placing a clawed finger on its long beak, as if questioning the human child.

Madotsuki gives a scream of her own, and stabs the Toriningen right in place where her heart should be. The Toriningen eyes seem to flash from brown to magenta, and it unleashes a screech so earsplitting, Madotsuki falls back, the blade still in the creature's breast. She looks up at the only being to withstand the knife, which picks her up by the collar of her shirt, and throws her aside like a ragdoll.

Madotsuki waits for the impacts, eye clamped shut, but doesn't feel it until what feels like a minute or more later. She opens her eyes, looking about. She's trapped. Can't go on. In this situation, she has no choice, but to pull her cheek. Her fingers are sticky with dried blood, and it's the grossest feeling she's had to endure, but she pulls.

She awakes with a gasp and tears beading down her face. The diary is forgotten as she sobs into balled fists, wracked with the guilt of murdering her friends, and the fear of the two-faced bird girls.

In fact, Madotsuki feels so guilty, she stays up for a day and a half, playing NASU, reading comics she'd read hundreds of times before, and not wanting to sleep, she didn't want to deal with the pieces she cruelly left behind. Thinking of Tasei, crying alone, and Monoko without her sister made her feel sick to her stomach.

But Madotsuki gives in at last to sleep. Finding herself in the Nexus, she decides to do the right thing. Explain to Tasei. Beg forgiveness from Monoko. The routine to Masada's, once so lighthearted and exciting is a chore, and she dreads seeing what she so unceremoniously left on the floor of the white spaceship.

But piano music is filling the air. It's the music Masada had been playing those few days ago. Madotsuki's heart beats faster, and she yanks open the door, and runs to the tall, slender man in front of her, and begins to bawl her eyes out. He's taken by surprise, but he chuckles, and remarks how he's sorry he was talking so much, and Madotsuki sobs that it wasn't his fault and she was the one who was sorry. She was the one who had killed him, and Masada had only been excited about helping a friend.

They reconcile, and Madotsuki tells him she has to visit the sisters, and he bids her farewell and a safe journey.

The melody begins again as she leaves and she knows everything is going to be okay.

When the girl arrives at the desert, she sees Monoko and Monoe playing together. And Dave Spector staring.

Everything turned out in her favour, luckily, and Madotsuki was pleased because she loved them soi much.

It was true. Madotsuki loved the people of her dreams very much.

She never wanted them to come to harm.

Through fault and terror, she learned her lesson. But the lesson was one she would not soon ever forget, for as long as she continued to dream.

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**If you were expecting a beautiful ending, I'm sorry. So sorry.**

**Am I the only one who feels horrible when Madotsuki kills a NPC that actually looks humanoid?**

**I hope not.**

**This is a teeny fandom, so I'm not expecting tons of reviews, but if you could, you'd make a writefag so happy.**


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